220HP ... when?

I guess you need a dyno to test that

 

Drivin' a Gen3 Prius for 14 years... HV is not either ICE or Electric. It is ICE, Electric and both depending on power required. I'd assume without having seen a 2023 Prime that HV in Sport mode will result in max HP. Possibly any mode will achieve max HP in hybrid vehicle HV setting.

My eyeballs are set on a 2023-2024 Prius Prime when they become more readily available.

 

I would assume in HV when you accelerate very hard ( why wouldnt it use both?). Probably similar Auto EV/HV as there shouldn't be a difference from a technical perspective.
Sure it cannot sustain it for long - especially with empty battery.

 

it should use both in ev when you ask it to

 

HV mode doesn't switch between EV and ICE. The Prius is a power-split or parallel/series hybrid, meaning it operates as both a series and parallel hybrid. When the engine is running a portion of its torque output is always going to MG1(might have a new name), the smaller motor, to run it as a generator. The electricity from MG1 generally goes to the traction motor(MG2), but it will also be used to charge the battery. If the system needs more power from the traction motor than MG1 can provide, it pulls it from the battery.

Now, the system can shut down the ICE when using it would be the less efficient. That's what you are hearing, but there isn't an engine only mode.

As for the question. The full power is available in HV mode. It should be available in Auto EV, and might be available in EV. For the EV modes, it is a question of when or whether the system will allow the ICE to fire up. Flooring the pedal should get that to happen in EV mode at some point.

 

when the ev icon turns off, that just means the engine is running. the electric motor is still helping, but you're not in ev only

 

probably 120-150hp. It EV only, floor the pedal and it's fairly slow. In HV or Auto HV/EV is when it "feels" the most powerful.

 

You're misunderstanding what the EV icon means. The icon lights up when the car is ONLY using electricity. The car is often using a little bit of EV power even when the bulk of the power is coming from the ICE.

To see what's actually going on at any given moment, change the settings on your Multi-Information Display to this screen:

 

The "Hybrid" in "HV" means engine+electric motor.
The "Electric" in "EV" means electric motor only.

Those are the two fundamental underlying driving behaviours. The EV car indicator shows which one of the two is occurring. The Prius does not support a third engine-only behaviour.

The closest you could get is an instant in HV behaviour where there's zero net power flow to the battery. But power can instantaneously start flowing to or from the battery, and it can adjust that at a very fine level. You can see with the display above how hard it is to get a "no arrow to or from the battery" state - you need to fine control the accelerator pedal.

The Prius can occasionally approach "engine-only" if it decides to limit flow to/from to the battery, eg when starting in very cold conditions with the battery well below freezing, but it never locks to totally engine-only.

Because of the power-split device, the motor-generators and inverter are always needed to get any of the power from the engine to the wheels. All the electric bits are always operating, and the battery's there, so there's no point not using it. A different mechanical system like the Honda i.MMD with a clutch to lock engine to wheels could sensibly run "engine-only".

The hybrid system operation mode that you can select with the buttons doesn't totally force behaviour. "Auto EV/HV" is telling the truth, but "EV Mode" is just a very strong preference for EV driving; it can still run the engine - if it needs heat, or you go too fast, for example. And "HV Mode" really just means "sustain charge" - don't use up the battery, acting like non-plug-in, so put back any charge used.

So the "EV" behaviour is orthogonal to the user mode, which is why there's a separate light. You can have HV behaviour in EV mode (very rarely), and EV behaviour in HV mode (maybe half the time at low speeds).

In earlier Priuses starting from Gen 2 that same EV icon was used to indicate "EV mode", and there was no EV behaviour indicator - you just had to listen or watch the energy monitor to tell if the engine was running. The EV behaviour indicator can be disabled in the Gen 5 to be more Gen 2-like.

(The manual seems to be careful to distinguish between "mode" and "behaviour/driving", so I've followed its example above.)

 

To go back to the original question, the max output (220hp or 194hp for normal prius) will be only sustainable for a short time or? As they ICE cannot charge the battery (MG1) and drive at max power at the same time - meaning the MG2 would run out of power eventually.

But how short is short? E.g. what happens when you floor longer very often while driving up a steep mountain?

 

The max power will be sustainable until the battery is totally depleted, to the bottom of the HV range.

Roughly one minute is the answer. Working:

The HEV Prius's gross battery capacity is 0.9kW. Not sure what percentage is available.

Engine power is 112kW (149hp). Total HEV system power of 194hp is 144kW. So the battery needs to supply 32kW at peak power. That would use up 0.9kWh in 100 seconds (0.9x60x60/32). So I'd guess HEV can probably sustain full power for maybe a minute, if it uses 60% of the gross capacity. (And assuming motor efficiency is close to 100% - I think it's not worse than 90%?)

I think the HV region of the PHEV is a bit bigger than the HEV's, which is good because 220hp is 164kW, so the PHEV's battery needs to supply 52kW at peak power. To keep that up for a minute would need 0.87kWh, which would not be possible with the HEV battery. (And I suspect the HEV battery can't supply that much power anyway).

You might theoretically be able to get 13 minutes or so of full power if starting with a full charge in the PHEV. Although I wonder if some other temperature limiting of the battery or inverter might kick in... (Edit: actually, I'm unsure that the limiting won't kick in before even the first minute is up. It may be that you drop to something lower than 194/220hp before dropping to engine-only 149hp).

Someone in Poland decided to check to see if the PHEV's EV range being depleted impaired 0-180km/h performance. He found it didn't, but that's because he was starting from the top of the HV range. A few more runs would have drained the battery and showed the loss.

 

Thanks for some good explanations!

It would be definitely cool, if the PHEV would more agressively deplete the battery even during HV when activating Sport mode. But the whole thing seems already complicated enough for customers - so I guess it would be even more confusing.

... and why is the polish guy the only one testing stuff like this?

 

Not quite sure what you're suggesting - there's no difference in max power between Sport and Normal mode, if you push the pedal all the way down. The PHEV can always more aggressively deplete the battery than the HEV - that's the 220hp/194hp difference, because the engine is the same.

EV Mode does restrain the maximum power. And as you can see from that video, it's restrained even if the engine is running. Which does make sense. It would be a bit weird to get a sort of "Turbo" effect where you suddenly surge forward when you hit 84mph and the engine starts.

 

Given your numbers and the PHEV I was suggesting that in HV Sport mode it would be cool (hypothetically) when max power would be available for the whole battery (e.g. 13min with full bat or whatever other limits there are) and not just 1min (the HV part).

 

Oh, so you mean if in HV Mode with EV capacity available, it lets the charge deplete if extra power is needed?

I suspect it might actually do that anyway. All the modes are "preferences" rather than absolute laws, so my "sustain charge" simplification above won't be an iron law.

The manual actually says:

So my "sustain charge" would apply to "normal driving", but maybe not to heavy acceleration. Maybe it lets the overall charge deplete in that scenario.

Found a thread discussing this scenario here, but no clear answer on it.

 

My question was, does the engine start in EV mode before the Gen 5 Prime reaches it's -max?- speed of 115 mph? So I watched the video above in post #15 again. During the second run in the video at timestamp 57 seconds or so it shows the engine starting at around 144 kph / 90 mph... 10 mph more than the Gen 4 Prime. @Preebee take a look, he also shows -dragy?- gps screens for each run.